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Diversity of Life

Overview

  • Credit value: 15 credits at Level 4
  • Convenor: to be confirmed
  • Assessment: three practical specimen-based ID tests (microbes - 30%, plants and animals - 35% each)

Module description

In this module we introduce you to the diversity of organismal life on the planet. We will consider the major groups of unicellular and multicellular organisms, including microbes, plants, fungi and animals. You will become familiar with the main physical characters that distinguish organismal groups, as well as key features of their biology (e.g. energy acquisition, metabolism, growth and development).

Throughout we will use a practical approach, utilising living and fossil specimens so that you will develop a hands-on approach to organismal identification.

Indicative syllabus

  • Defining life, how life forms are classified (an introduction to Linnaean and cladistic classification), energy and life (different autotrophs and heterotrophs), trophic ecology
  • Prokaryotes, their structure and diversity, bacteria and archaea, symbiosis to eukaryotes
  • Single-celled eukaryotes (simplified classification); protozoa and other protists - amoebas, ciliates, flagellates, sporozoans (parasites)
  • Red and green algae, non-vascular and early vascular plants
  • Seed plants, gymnosperms and angiosperms
  • Slime moulds and fungi
  • Basal animals (sponges, cnidaria) and other invertebrate
  • Echinoderms and lower vertebrates (deuterostomes)
  • Tetrapod vertebrates

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • understand and appreciate organismal diversity, enumerating distinguishing features of microbes, plants, animals and fungi, and explaining how organisms are classified
  • describe the evolution and interrelationships of the major groups of life
  • describe the differences in the embryology, development, internal structure, growth, reproduction and ecology of different groups
  • explain the evolution and adaptation of characters within diverse organisms, including different groups of plants and animals
  • handle and make accurate observations of dried and preserved specimens, making notes and illustrations
  • use incident and transmitted light microscopes to study a variety of specimens
  • use identification keys and other resources to aid in identifying different organisms
  • handle live animal, plant and microbial specimens, making and recording observations
  • work as part of a team to solve problems and work with natural history specimens.